Nazi history is exceptionally important today because the party’s rise from a white nationalist, anti-Semitic, racist fringe group to a world-class military power that almost succeeded in imposing it’s genocidal dictatorship across the globe remains the primary foundation and inspiration for current white supremacists in Europe and the U.S. It’s not enough to teach that Nazi Germany existed and was our enemy in WWII; we have to help students identify the factors that gave rise to one of the most destructive ideologies in human history.

It is fortuitous, if coincidental, that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is engaged in a project that could help students examine the Nazi rise to power while also engaging in media literacy analysis. History Unfolded, a crowdsourcing project by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is inviting the public to help crowdsource an answer to questions about what Americans knew about Nazi violence or intentions and when they knew it. Scholars have already examined coverage of events in major newspapers and newsreels, but no one has ever looked at what would have been seen by people who got their news from small town papers in the 1930s and 1940s. So the museum is asking the public to comb through libraries to find local newspaper articles, political cartoons, and letters to the editors. The results will be uploaded to a searchable database and some may be included in the Museum’s 2018 exhibit on America’s response to the Holocaust.

What do the newspapers tell us about how local and national leaders and community members reacted to news about the event?

What did you learn about the relationship between the rise of the Nazis and what was going on in your community?

What did you learn about the Nazis or WWII that might be relevant to understanding current events?

There are also a wide range of natural media literacy analysis questions:

Where does the story appear (what page) and how much column space was devoted to the topic? What do these factors tell you about the story’s importance to your community?

What were the sources of information? Was the reporter on scene or conveying information shared by others?

What questions did the reporter ask? What questions might they have asked that they didn’t?

Was the information accurate? If not, what do you think accounts for the errors?

How was the story framed? What was the primary message? Did the piece rely on or include any stereotypes?

What role did AP or other newswire sources play? Did the local paper reprint a wire source or do it’s own reporting? Is there a local angle?

How many news sources were widely available in your community in the 1930s? How did coverage of the Nazis in the source you are looking at compare to other local sources? How did it compare to major national sources?

And though it’s not the focus of the project, it would be easy to spend just a little bit of class time contemplating how the media literacy lessons might be applied to modern media:

What role do wire services play today?

Newspaper editors determined which stories made the front page. Who determines what shows up in the news feeds on Facebook or other social media platforms?

How do reporters today gather information? How does the widespread availability of Internet or wifi enabled phones with cameras change the nature or credibility of journalism?

How does news coverage influence the way we think about groups of people with whom we may not have much personal contact? How does the existence of “comments” sections at the end of news stories, or links to Twitter threads influence our ideas?

For two days now I’ve been thinking about the U.S. election results and pondering what to write. In the next few days, I’ll offer some thoughts on lessons for media literacy education and what the future may hold for media literacy educators during the Trump Presidency. In the meantime, of the dozens and dozens of reactions that have arrived in my Inbox, from personal stories to fundraising appeals from progressive organizations urging me not to lose hope, I share with you the one message I experienced as most profound, powerful, and important. This is what my colleague, Rachel Poulain from California Newsreel wrote:

Dear friends and colleagues,

Here’s the deal: we are going to keep going.

We are going to continue to be kind and inclusive. We’re going to keep making sure our children know they are loved and valued and that growing up in a safe, secure and nurturing society is their birthright. We’re going to show up, with the strength and courage to believe in the United States as a nation that lifts up freedom, equity and justice for all. We’re going to keep making sure our Muslim, Latino, Black and LGBTQ brothers, sisters and children know they are safe. We’re going to wake up each day and handle business.

Grieve because you must. But please do not fall into the abyss of fear that has generated such a dark socio-political stage. Please.

What we have now is our courage and our faith in all who are traveling this rough road with us.

When the dark seems to subsume everything, those of us who still can, must exaggerate Light.

Every minute of every day we have to chose between fear and love. Choose love. Breathe love. Be love.

There are a lot of us in this together.

Find your way toward what feels valuable and good and take your refuge and your stand there.

We’ve got this.

With love, light and faith in the greater good,

Rachel Poulain – Director of Public Engagement, The Raising of America & Mother to one absolutely delightful 3 1/2 year old

Given all the recent political attention to the treatment of women and the diversity of our population, you might think that media over-generalizations about gender are passé, but I hear the phrase “Every woman…” (or “Every girl…”) with surprising frequency.

I suppose I can live with the mandatory Mother’s Day reporting that assumes all women want to be or are mothers. When I was growing up, ninety percent of American women became mothers at some point in their lives. These days, the U.S. Census says the figure hovers closer to eighty percent, but it’s still the vast majority of women, even if it isn’t me.

Other common claims, however, are more dubious. In the past few weeks I have heard questionable generalizations from people who, measured by their audience numbers, are popular with the female demographic: Dr. Phil, Oprah, the Kardashians, and the network TV morning shows. They have declared that every girl deeply desires a tan (I guess girls of color or girls who know enough about skin cancer to stay away from tanning beds don’t count), every woman wants a great pair of lashes (they were referring to eyelashes…what were you thinking??), every woman dreams of a “fairy tale” wedding (I expect they meant with Prince Charming in a lavish, romantic setting rather than the being-cursed-by-a-wicked-witch thing), and every woman loves shoes (why do conversations about women loving shoes never include hiking boots?!?).

What do all these generalizations have in common aside from the fact that they don’t in any way apply to me even though I am a proud member of the “every woman” clan? For starters, they reinforce fairly sexist notions of womanhood, where attention is focused on appearance over accomplishment or authenticity. Not coincidentally, they also all promote consumer spending.

Interestingly, the tanning claim was part of a traditional TV ad, but the other declarations were made during “shows.” More in later posts about the power of repetition in shaping cultural norms and about how commercial media programs don’t just cut to ads, they are ads. In the meantime, listen carefully next time you hear a sentence that begins with “Every woman…”, ask yourself, “Whose truth is really being represented here and whose experience is being made invisible – and why?”

Personally, I’m waiting to hear sentences like, “Every woman wants to help achieve world peace in her lifetime” or “Every girl dreams of being President, serving on the Supreme Court, or working for a company that is committed to sustainable environmental policies.” What do you dream of hearing?

May be reprinted for educational, non-profit use with the credit: From the edublog “TUNE IN Next Time” by Faith Rogow, Ph.D., InsightersEducation.com 2016